In the old ranchlands of South Texas, dormant uranium mines are coming back online. A collection of new ones hope to start production soon, extracting radioactive fuel from the region’s shallow aquifers. Many more may follow.
These mines are the leading edge of what government and industry leaders in Texas hope will be a nuclear renaissance, as America’s latent nuclear sector begins to stir again.
Texas is currently developing a host of high-tech industries that require enormous amounts of electricity, from crypto-currency mines and artificial intelligence to hydrogen production and seawater desalination. Now, powerful interests in the state are pushing to power it with next-generation nuclear reactors.
“We can make Texas the nuclear capital of the world,” said Reed Clay, president of the Texas Nuclear Alliance, former chief operating officer for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and former senior counsel to the Texas Office of Attorney General. “There’s a huge opportunity.”
Clay owns a lobbying firm with heavyweight clients that include SpaceX, Dow Chemical and the Texas Blockchain Council, among many others. He launched the Texas Nuclear Association in 2022 and formed the Texas Nuclear Caucus during the 2023 state legislative session to advance bills supportive of the nuclear industry.
The efforts come amid a national resurgence of interest in nuclear power, which can provide large amounts of energy without the carbon emissions that warm the planet. And it can do so with reliable consistency that wind and solar power generation lack. But it carries a small risk of catastrophic failure and requires uranium from mines that can threaten rural aquifers.
In South Texas, groundwater management officials have fought for almo